


Couples' Counseling

by boleyn13



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Established Relationship, Gen, Humor, Jealousy, Loki is a great boyfriend, M/M, Magic, Mischief, Never mess with Loki's boyfriend, Post-Avengers (2012), Protectiveness, Romance, Trouble In Paradise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-12
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:28:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28034679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boleyn13/pseuds/boleyn13
Summary: "Are we willing to believe that Loki ruins everybody else’s life because he is too immature to deal with his relationship problems? Never mind, it sounds a lot like Loki. I am buying it.”“But if that’s really the case what are we supposed to do to?”“Hope they work it out. Both of them are huge jerks, they’re made for each other. It’s going to be fine.”Loki is messing with the entire city of New York a lot more than usual. He seems to be upset about something. What else can the Avengers do but nicely ask Loki's boyfriend to tell Loki to stop ruining everybody's life. Neither the boyfriend nor Loki appreciate the effort.
Comments: 12
Kudos: 88





	Couples' Counseling

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everybody,
> 
> A rather long oneshot of my favourite sub-genre "Loki's boyfriend is giving the Avengers a hard time"
> 
> It's supposed to be light-hearted and humorous, so have fun :)

This morning had not started off differently than any other day. Steve had woken up before the first rays of sunshine had even had the chance to creep through his window sills. Cereals and orange juice for breakfast, a morning run that had lasted 60 minutes, a quick shower afterwards and then off to work. The first meetings at SHILED headquarters had not been the most exciting affair, but so far everything had been shaping up to be business as usual. Without any of them being on a mission. Naturally Stephen didn’t allow himself to get used to a rather boring and somewhat relaxed day, but he simply had no reason to believe that a change was around the corner.

That was until the major alarm went off with a blasting volume that threated to blow out everybody’s eardrums. Steve was up from his chair instantly while Clint moaned softly in annoyance. “I was supposed to have the afternoon off.”

“Nobody is going to get home any time soon, Agent Barton. Get your ass up and grab your bow” Fury barked over the coms and everybody scrambled to do as he said. The pitch of his voice didn’t leave much room for doubt, something was going on. It wasn’t happening in Washington though. Nor in New York. All of them were sent to San Francisco and the briefing they received in the quinjet was rather odd to say the least.

Tony adequately summarised the situation with the phrase “Now that’s a hot sloppy fucking mess.”

Although Steve didn’t appreciate the choice of words he had to admit that Tony wasn’t far off. The picture that San Francisco offered was absolutely grotesque and left all the Avengers standing there, looking at each other in mild confusion. Just what were they supposed to do?

“Your brother has very sick sense of humour.” Clint stated drily which had Thor protesting softly, “I do not see any proof that Loki is responsible for this.”

Five dark glances had Thor lower his head in shame and Steve felt bad for him. There wasn’t much time for that though, because their presence suddenly began to make a lot more sense. Loki (seriously, who else would come up with something like that) had made all of the streets in the entire city disappear. Not just that, the asphalt had been replaced with all sorts of things that made sure no car would reach its destination.

The quinjet offered the bizarre view. To his right Steve spotted cars and people stuck something that looked like jelly, reaching up to their knees. The situation on the right side appeared to be even messier. Mud. Tons of it, blocking entrances to buildings and keeping every vehicle right where it was. And as if jelly and dirt wasn’t enough, there was sand, snow and even something that looked suspiciously like cotton candy. Pointing out that the entire infrastructure of this city had broken down would have been gratuitous.

“Okay, we need to clear the way to the hospitals and other basic services. Then we need to get the people that are stuck out of… whatever they are stuck in.” Steve took charge and Natasha chimed in with another good point. “Better not lose any time on that. These guys are going to get frustrated quickly in this situation and that could lead to dangerous results.”

So Steve’s ordinary day had turned into something else entirely. They were doing their very best to get everybody out of this rather sticky situation while all the time waiting for an actual attack to hit them out of nowhere. That didn’t happen, but Steve had to admit that there was already a lot on their plate anyway. By the end of the day all of them were exhausted, worn down and had either jelly, sand or mud all over them and in places that Steve didn’t dare mentioning. Tony wasn’t half as shy when it came down to describing how the jelly had ruined his suit.

“Your brother is going to clean it with a toothbrush the next time I see him.”

“We still do not know for sure that Loki is the one behind this.”

Clint tossed his boot at Thor which was halfway filled jelly which sprayed all over them. A fitting end for a messed up day.

***

There was nothing inherently new about Loki being a permanent pain and making their lives miserable in general. Normally though, there were little pauses between the individual disasters. Opportunities to catch their breath and to relax after dealing with the madness. Usually two or three weeks.

The very next day the entire water supply of New York City turned green. SHIELDs finest experts all agreed after intense analysis that the water was perfectly fine. Except for the colour nothing at all had changed. Unfortunately though it turned out to be very hard to convince the general public that they could keep on drinking a liquid that had the same colour as moss. Within five hours every single supermarket and gas station in the entire state had run out of bottled water. One hour later all the soda was gone, then the alcohol. This was the exact point when Tony stopped thinking any of this was funny.

Everybody else had thought so hours ago when the Avengers had been called in to dissolve the first riot in front of a store. If Loki had any sense of self-preservation he wouldn’t show his face anytime soon.

***

“Okay, that’s it! What is your brother’s problem?! Nobody can be so fucking bored to cause so much havoc in a single week!”

How could this be Tony’s life? Yelling insults while firing at a gigantic marshmallow man that was making its way through New York. Like a fluffy Godzilla.

“Ask him yourself! The jerk’s right over there!”

Tony indeed saw Loki standing on top of a building, with his arms crossed and the most sombre expression on his face. What gave him the right to look miserable when he had been the one summoning this white monstrosity? Tony would have loved to fire at him, but he was busy with the marshmallow. That didn’t stop him from yelling a ‘jackass’ at Loki. No reaction at all. Eventually he even disappeared before they had finally taken out their unwanted visitor. The result was that the Avengers and a big part of New York were covered in a disgusting, gooey substance.

To Tony’s bewilderment it was Natasha who snapped first as she was trying to get that disgusting mess out her hair. “There is a line and that line has been crossed! I am not doing this anymore. This has to stop!”

“Totally on your side, but what do you want to do? We’ve got no way to seek him out. We couldn’t even ask him nicely to stop if we wanted to.”

“Actually… we wouldn’t have to ask him.” Everybody turned to Bruce who shrugged sheepishly. “After all there is one person he listens to.”

Tony would rather swallow a tablespoon full of salt than talk to that little piece of work. That was a vow he had made and Tony had no intention of breaking it. “Fine, if we’re going to go that far, let’s get one thing straight from the very beginning – I am not going to do it.”

The awkward silence that instantly ensued gave Tony a very uneasy feeling. “Okay... why is nobody saying anything?”

Clint casually shrugged before responding with a deadpan. “He hates you the least.”

“Hey! He called me a twat whose idiocy was only surpassed by his alcohol consumption. Utterly charming! He loves me!”

Thankfully their fearless leader came to Tony’s aid. “You don’t need to go there if you don’t want to, Tony.”

“Thanks, Steve.”

“We’ll vote on it.”

“What?!”

“Who is in favour of Tony talking to Gaughan?”

Five hands went up in complete unison and Tony reacted by raising one single finger. The one in the middle.

***

Tony was slightly out of breath when he finally reached the top floor. As if this whole thing wasn’t already enough of a fucking chore, now even the elevator had decided to stop working. That gift basket was fucking heavy and was still pissed that he was the one who had to do this. Shouldn’t they know that he was incredibly bad at begging? Or even at pretending that he was humble…

Walking towards the door of the apartment Tony tried to imagine how this would go down if Clint were here instead of him. A man who couldn’t lie and wanted to impale Loki on several arrows and fry him over an open fire should go and talk to Loki’s boyfriend kiss his ass, so Loki would stop fucking things up for the entire population of New York and sometimes San Francisco.

Fine, now it was up to Tony to gather up all his charm and to blow sugar up that bastard’s ass. Nothing easier than that. After ringing the doorbell Tony tried to straighten up and to put his most dazzling smile on his face although he really felt like knocking the other’s teeth out. That sentiment got worse with every passing second, because Gaughan took his sweet time.

Finally Tony could hear steps and the door was ripped open. Gaughan blinked in surprise when he realised who was standing in front of him, but then he instantly put on his bitch-face. Oh please, Tony had seen so much better. Mostly among his one night stands. “Hi Liam. Good to see you. I thought I’d drop buy and give you this fruit basket because… Well you know, your skin has this murky complexion. Probably because of a lack of vitamins. Eat some oranges. Anyway how are you and how is Loki?”

Within a single second it became blatantly obvious that Tony had said the wrong thing which wasn’t exactly a difficult task when Liam was involved. A smile on his face would probably brutally kill this dumb Englishman with shockingly bad taste in man. Given the fact the Liam looked ready to murder him Tony did what he always did in these kinds of situations. He kept talking. “How about an orange? It’s full of vitamin C. Could you please tell Loki to stop fucking up the city?”

“I have no idea where that stupid git is! You tell him he can fuck around with San Francisco as much as he pleases, but not when I am attending a conference there!”

The door was slammed right into Tony’s face and a little lightbulb lit up right above his head. Last week’s events suddenly made a lot more sense.

***

“Wait a second, Tony.” Clint had a huge frown on his face. He made the impression that Tony had just confronted them with a highly complex puzzle. “So you are saying that Loki and Gaughan are fighting and that’s the reason why he is fucking up shit?”

“Actually, I am not even sure if they’re still together. Gaughan was livid. He rejected the oranges. Something deadly serious has to be wrong if a man refuses oranges.” Tony retold had what had happened and apparently some of the Avengers had trouble believing him. “What exactly did he say?”

“Hey, if you’re distrusting every word that I say, you shouldn’t have sent me to talk to him! He called Loki a git and claimed that he had been in San Francisco when Loki went on his little rampage. That’s it.”

Steve made a pensive noise. “Wouldn’t we be aware if they had broken up? I mean Gaughan is still under constant surveillance, isn’t he?”

“Yes, he is, but the agents do keep their distance. Lots of it. Understandable after the frog incident.” There was an uncomfortable shift in the room as soon as Natasha reminded them of this specific failure on SHIELD’s part.

“Poor guys. Anybody knows how they are doing?” In Bruce’s voice there was some serious concern and Clint answered with a vague hand gesture. “Their therapist is doing overtime. Back to the main topic, are we willing to believe that Loki ruins everybody else’s life because he is too immature to deal with his relationship problems? Never mind, it sounds a lot like Loki. I am buying it.”

“But if that’s really the case what are we supposed to do to?”

“Hope they work it out?” Tony suggested in a rather blasé tone. “Both of them are huge jerks, they’re made for each other. It’s going to be fine.”

***

It wasn’t fine. Only one day later Fury called an emergency meeting after every single traffic light in the entire city switched to red at the same time and it took exactly the duration of two heartbeats until absolute chaos ensued. Not a single person in New York was able to hear their own thoughts, because every damned car at every fucking crossroad was honking their horn.

Just two seconds into the whole disaster Clint was ready and very willing to strangle any person who would look at him the wrong way. Understandably and unfortunately he wasn’t the only one. Lots of people got out of their cars and started a fight, because was there anything easier to get violent over than a fucking traffic light?

It was a freaking tragedy, since this was more or less public unrest. Normal people losing their shit over something that was out of their control. Clint could partly understand their motivation. Anybody who had ever been stuck in a traffic jam knew where they were coming from. Putting himself in their shoes wasn’t that much of a challenge. The inability to sort this out the way they wanted to was unbearably frustrating. There would be bad blood and a lot of paper work if the Avengers started beating up the Average Joe to re-establish order. Although some of those guys were more vicious than some monsters or evil overlords that Clint had had to deal with over the years. Never underestimate the damage a guy can do with his fists to another person when he thinks that person is responsible for him having to wait in front of a traffic light just a minute longer than they had anticipated. By the end of this wonderful day (fuck you, Loki) a whole cannibal tribe would have been able to create necklaces out of all of the teeth that were lying scattered around on the streets of New York.

Tony had even spotted Loki sitting on top of a streetlight, watching the commotion with mild disinterest on his face. At the very first attempt to engage in a conversation or fight with him, which were the same thing, Loki had vanished into nothingness.

Something that didn’t vanish was Clint’s unbridled rage. “I am done. I’ll personally drag Gaughan here by his hair and he can sort things out with Loki. I am not doing another one of these stunts!”

“The deal says he is off-limits and you know that, Clint.” Natasha’s words bore no bite, she just sounded worn out. Honestly, Clint didn’t feel any different, but he was determined to end this dreadful episode. Actually he was looking forward to suppressing every memory related to these couple of days.

“Hold on a second…” Tony for once brought up a very good point. “Is the deal still on if they’re no longer together? Technically we only agreed to leave Loki’s boyfriend alone. He didn’t say anything about his snotty ex.”

“Right!”

Clint was absolutely willing to jump on this train, but Steve had to rain on his parade. “All we know is that they’re fighting. That doesn’t mean they broke up. We’re not going to risk sending more people straight into therapy.”

“I am going to need therapy if this doesn’t stop!”

“Okay, Clint, so what do you suggest we do?”

“Grab Loki, put him in a box and throw the key away.”

“Excellent plan. Why haven’t we done this yet?”

“Thor voted against it every time I suggested it.”

With a grim expression on his face Thor shrugged. “After this week I feel inclined to change my mind about your suggestion. Although it might still be a hardship to get Loki inside said box.”

For a few minutes all of them now randomly blurted out all different kinds of punishments that Loki should endure what he had been putting them through During those few minutes some legit energy had re-entered the room, but it quickly evaporated and left them behind feeling even more tired than before. The following silence lasted rather long and it was genuinely depressing. Six people sitting at a table, staring into nothingness.

“I have an idea. I might be a bit unorthodox though.” Nobody said anything, so Bruce continued talking. “We do agree that there is a very high probability of Loki doing all this stuff because he is… let’s say angry about having troubles with his partner. So wouldn’t it be in everybody’s best interest if they made up?”

“Hold on there a second, Brucie Bear.” Tony was already shaking his head. “I have the very bad feeling that you are going to suggest some matchmaking here. If that’s the case, I am outta here.”

Clint couldn’t deny that was also extremely weirded out, but Bruce didn’t bat an eyelid. “I think it would be best for everybody living in the city of New York if Loki’s love life was a little less tumultuous and it’s not like there are a lot of people who can do anything about that. Except for us.”

Tony got up from his chair. “I am out of here.”

“Sit back down.” Surprisingly enough Tony actually listened to Steve. “I must admit that this is a rather… out of the box suggestion, but it’s out duty as Avengers to do everything in our power to protect the people. Bruce has a point. Also we have to admit that things were a lot quieter and more peaceful when they were still getting along. Do you remember how we learned about Liam? Loki stopped the Brooklyn Bridge from collapsing, because it would inconvenience Liam on his way to work.”

“Yeah.” Leaning back in his chair Tony closed his eyes, a dreamy expression on his face. “Those were the good times. When we thought a relationship would domesticate the bastard a little bit. Little did we know…”

“That Gaughan would turn out to be an absolute jerk?”

“Yes! It should have been obvious. Why should he be interested in Loki otherwise? Damn, do you remember the time he called to tell us he would sue Tony if he damaged Loki’s armour again in a fight?”

Granted Clint had found that one a little bit funny. Very much unlike Tony and his entire legal staff. “Okay, all joking aside. How are we even going to do that? Send each of them flowers and make them think the other one sent them?”

By narrowing her eyes Natasha showed her frustration with Clint. “It’s still a complete riddle to me how you ever managed to get married.”

“Oh, do you have any better suggestions?”

***

So suddenly the Avengers were on a very special mission – smooth things over between Loki and his boyfriend. Which was going to be a pretty hard challenge since they had no idea why they were having troubles in the first place. Except for Loki being a lunatic, but so was Liam for going out with him in the first place. Their first idea was to actually talk to Liam and ask him how his relationship was working out at the moment, because that’s what friends are for, right?

After Tony had threatened to kill himself if he had to seek out Liam again, they switched to a more sophisticated method to choose who was going to play friendly relationship counselor. Steve and Natasha drew the short stick and one day later showed up at Liam’s office. The visit lasted about two minutes. Firstly Liam called the cops on them and then Fury to let him know that he was filing a restraining order against every single member of the Avengers.

“Work your issues with the idiot out yourselves!”

This was going to be a big piece of work.

***

“How about we kidnap Liam, lock him in a room with Loki and won’t let them out until they’re all sweethearts again?”

“Kidnapping is illegal. How would we get Loki in that room? How would we keep them in this room? Do you see that’s wrong with your plan?”

“At least I am being creative.”

“Actually I might have an idea…”

***

Thor’s plan wasn’t anything mind-blowing, but clearly effective. All they had to do was get some fancy artefact from Asgard that Loki had always wanted as bait, place it at a certain spot and get Liam to be there the moment Loki showed up to get it. Obviously it was rather difficult to time these two things, therefore they had to indeed go back to kidnapping. Not their proudest and most glamorous moment, but sometimes heroes had to do what nobody else dared to do.

The easiest part of the whole endeavour was to snatch Liam on his way home from his office. After that point it was pure agony for all of them. Tony was very close to believing that Loki had simply been fed up with his boyfriend because the latter one would not shut up.

“I am going to ruin your life, Stark. You are not going to prison for this. I will just take everything you own. Then I am going to repurpose your suits. I’ve always wanted a personal butler to open every door for me.”

Tony felt confident in his ability to ignore him, but Steve didn’t have the same willpower. “We’re really sorry about this. It’s not going to take very long, then you’re free to go. Do you need anything? A coffee? A soft drink?”

Steve’s pitiful attempts at being the nice kidnapper were answered with a death glare. “Oh, you are going to prison and I’m going to send your shield to North Korea as a present to Kim Jong Un.”

“Is this going to be what the next couple of hours are going to be like? You telling us how you’re going to make us pay for this? That’s going to be exhausting.”

“I am so sorry for inconveniencing you, Barton, but this is my kidnapping and I am going to talk as much as I want to. You’re going to prison too. I haven’t decided yet if they should put you with the child molesters or the psych ward. Maybe I’ll roll the dice on it.”

Fine, maybe Tony couldn’t keep his mouth shut that long after all. “You know as a lawyer you should know that this isn’t how the justice system works.”

“Oh, don’t worry. You are going to find out very soon what I am going to do with the help of the justice system.”

For some reason Natasha decided that this was the right moment to start giving Liam ideas. “Interesting. Why don’t you just ask Loki to kill us? Are things not working too well for you guys right now?”

Liam was without a doubt a pretty guy, but Natasha’s question turned his facial features into an ugly grimace. “You’re getting deported. There must be a warrant out for you in half a dozen countries. Which ones of them do still have the death penalty?”

Wasn’t he just oozing with charm? Tony honestly didn’t have a clue why Thor nevertheless made an attempt to sympathize with his wannabe brother in law. “Liam, we merely want to give you the opportunity to talk things out with Loki. Neither of you seem to be particularly happy at the moment.”

“You know what would make me happy? If you fucked back off to Asgard and left me alone! Take Loki with you while you are at it!”

That didn’t sound like something a nice involuntary talk with your other half couldn’t fix.

There were no more attempts at conversation and luckily it took merely four and a half hours for Loki to show up. Not for the talk but for the artefact that he wanted to steal. Therefore he naturally had the most pleasantly surprised look on his face when he saw the Avengers and his boyfriend. “What the hell is this supposed to be?!”

“Hello Loki. Not pleased to see you. I am still pissed at you. Bye.” Liam got up from his chair and expectantly looked at the Avengers. “There. We talked. I’m going to leave now.”

Putting two and two together Loki quickly chose the person to direct his anger at. Obviously Thor. “Did you take him hostage and bring him here so we would be forced to have a conversation? Have you lost your mind?!”

This was going great and Tony was happily going to point it out. “Isn’t it great how much you guys have to bond over? You both think that we’re crazy and you hate us! Why don’t you talk about that a little more?”

“Stark, shut up or I am going to stab you.” Loki hissed.

“Cool, another thing you guys can do together!”

“What the fuck, Clint.”

Totally unimpressed by what they were saying Liam shook his head and headed towards the door. “I am out of here.”

“Me too. Thank you for this.” With the artefact in his hands and a sour expression on his face Loki vanished into thin air, leaving them behind to feel stupid.

It was Thor who eventually pointed out the obvious. “That didn’t work. They didn’t even look at each other. Should we try again in a few days’ time?”

The general lack of excitement was summed up by Natasha’s sigh. “I don’t think continued kidnapping of a highly esteemed lawyer is the solution to our dilemma.”

“I am certain that a lot of people would be elated if he was kidnapped and never came back. Loki would freak out though… Not recommendable. So what do we do?”

Tony smirked at Bruce. “Now we get creative! We’ve saved the world, we definitely are able to save one crappy relationship from hell!”

Not a single person in the room felt the urge to agree.

***

Their next approach was a little more subtle. Two days later there was a sighting of Loki and the city wasn’t going to hell at the same time. Thanks to the amazing system that was democracy Thor was the chosen person to make an approach. This odd Midgardian way of deciding things together didn’t have a great future in his opinion.

Loki was hanging around the High Line when Thor carefully approached him and every other person tried to get away from them as quickly as possible. By now Loki had managed to achieve quite the reputation.

“I am trying to enjoy the afternoon sun, Thor. How are you planning on ruining my day?”

“I would merely like to talk to my brother. When was the last time we’ve had a conversation?”

“Months ago. We’ve established a wonderful habit. Why would you want to break it?”

“I just want to talk to you.”

Groaning in annoyance Loki shrugged. “Then go ahead. I probably will not be listening.”

“Alright…” Thor didn’t have a clue how to ease into the subject, so he just went straight for it. “What is wrong between you and Liam?”

Loki’s mouth dropped slightly open as he had clearly not expected that question. After two seconds he had regained his composure and punished Thor with cold eyes. “I do not know. What is wrong with your cape?”

The very moment the last word had passed Loki’s lips he disappeared and Thor was left alone with the bitter taste of failure in his mouth. Also there was a searing scent in nose. Almost like burning fabric. Within the next five minutes the internet gorging with pictures of Thor trying to stomp out the flames that were devouring his cape.

***

“So that didn’t work. I suggest we turn our attention to Liam. We need to think carefully about this though. One wrong move could make things so much worse. Therefore we need to plan everything in excruciating detail. Nothing can go wrong, nobody can make any knee-jerk decisions. First, let’s…”

“I took care of it.”

It was generally a bad idea to interrupt Natasha, but right now Clint, full of overblown confidence, didn’t seem to realise that.

“How? What? No! What did you do? Tell me that you didn’t do anything!”

“Relax, Nat. I went down the classy route. I sent two dozen red roses to Liam’s office. The card says ‘Sorry for being such a dickhead’. Signed by Loki. That should do it.”

Natasha kicked him in the shins.

***

“Stark! Stop laughing at me for hell’s sake!”

Tony didn’t even try, this was way too good. Only five minutes ago he had been fairly certain that he was going to fall asleep during their mind-numbingly boring meeting. With his head propped up on one hand Tony had been waiting for his own forehead to hit the table top as his eyelids had slowly become heavier and heavier. Gracious man that he was, Fury had saved Tony from this much undignified fate. When the door to the conference room had burst open the dreary head of SHIELD had stormed inside with the accessory that Tony hadn’t know that Fury needed. It was glorious.

Natasha’s dark glare did nothing to diminish his joy and the pulsing vein on Fury’s forehead made everything even funnier.

“Tony, stop it.” Steve mumbled rather helplessly and next to him Clint was also obviously also trying to contain his laughter.

“I am not going to apologize.” Tony’s stomach was hurting and Fury was attempting to stab him with his eyes. “But Nick should to whoever has to clean up this mess.”

Also Tony should ask who he would have to write a ‘Thank you’ card for this gorgeous sight. There was an actual small and pitch-black cloud hoovering above Fury’s head. Also it was raining down on him which made Fury look like a completely soaked cartoon character in an extremely bad mood.

Although nobody had made an accusation yet Thor was shifting uncomfortably in his chair, clearing his throat. “I must admit this looks very much like my brother’s work.”

“You think?!” Fury yelled while pointlessly trying to wipe the water off his face.

“What did you do to make him mad at you?”

Fury answered Natasha’s question with a loud “Nothing! It’s not just me! Everybody who was on Times Square an hour ago is now running around with their very own bad weather!”

“Even indoors” Tony croaked out in between a huge fit of laughter and that did it for Clint who merrily joined in despite probably being responsible for this mess.

Granted Tony would be pissed off too if it were him in Fury’s place, but it wasn’t. This was clearly a magical matter, so not Tony’s field of expertise. Therefore it was totally okay to keep on laughing like his life depended on it. Like this is took some time until Tony got the full picture. Loki (because seriously, who else?) had indeed gifted every single person on Times Square a depressing little cloud. Those people definitely got their answer to why it always rained on them. Also, this time Loki hadn’t acted in complete secrecy. There were videos of him, standing on top of a building, waving his right hand and voilà, clouds for everybody. The odd thing was that he had not stayed to marvel at his work which was admittedly outrageously funny. Not like him at all not to gloat.

Steve finally asked the question that was on everybody’s mind. “I am not sure what we can do about that.”

“Oh, I know!” Tony exclaimed solemnly. “Can you give us your version of ‘Singing in the rain’?”

Fury looked genuinely ready to murder him. Probably by piercing Tony’s heart with the umbrella he was now constantly carrying around.

In the end the problem solved itself. After eight very wet hours the clouds slowly dissolved and all that was left behind was a flooded floor and a disgruntled Fury. All that remained was an immensely fond memory and some death threads in Loki’s general direction.

***

Tony was so sick of the ‘He hates you the least’ argument. It was again him who had been sent to talk to Liam, but Tony had insisted on Steve coming with him, because why should Tony suffer alone. It was harder than expected to enter this law firm. The security downstairs had pictures of both of them and claimed that they weren’t allowed to go any further.

Steve looked properly shocked at the idea that anybody wouldn’t want Captain America in their fancy office building, but Tony merely had to cross it off the list. Not the first order to stay away from a house. It also wasn’t going to be the last one that he was going to overcome by the help of some green notes. It shocked Steve even more that one could bribe a security guard and one didn’t even need much money for that.

“I’ll let you do the talking. He always seems to get mad at me for breathing.” Steve muttered under his breath as the doors of the elevator opened and they stepped into the buzzing floor.

“Cool. Usually you guys tell me to shut up all the time, but when it comes to saving this fucked up relationship – all responsibility on Tony. I appreciate it.”

Literally all eyes were on them when they approached Liam’s office. The one at the very end of the corridor with the huge panorama windows. The man’s got it made. Also, his secretary was scraping by a panic attack when she spotted the two Avengers. Tony grinned widely at her. “Hey, just dropping by.”

“No, that’s not possible. You can’t… Didn’t the security… No, don’t go in there!”

Tony was already pushing the door open. “Hello Liam. How are you? You don’t mind, do you?”

From behind his desk Liam welcomed them with a glare so icy that Tony felt his insides freezing. Was it that soul crushing glare that turned Loki on?

“You are not supposed to be here. This entire floor is an Avenger free zone. Leave. Right now.”

“Do not worry, we are not here as Avengers. It’s a completely professional matter. We need help in a legal matter. You are a lawyer.” Steve had changed his mind very quickly about the ‘not talking’ bit and Liam’s mood got even darker. Yeah, he definitely would prefer it if Steve stopped breathing. “I hate to reveal it to you, Rogers, but there is no way you can afford me. I’ve heard there are two guys doing pro bono work in Hell’s Kitchen. Perhaps you should seek them out.”

Not taking the bait Tony casually sat down and brushed off his suit that was definitely more expensive than the one Liam was wearing. “What about me? Am I able to afford your services?”

A bit bored Liam nodded. “I guess so.”

“Wonderful! I’d like to sue Loki. How can I do that?”

A big frown appeared on Liam’s face and his eyes shifted between Steve and Tony. “Is this an actual consultation?”

“Of course! You always claim to be such a badass lawyer. Go ahead and prove it. Me suing Loki. How. Go!”

“Alright.” Liam leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms. “Pay me.”

“Excuse me?” Steve was still having a hard time that today was all about money when they actually were here on a mission of love.

Unmoved Liam insisted. “I am a solicitor and you are in my office, asking for my expert opinion. Put some money on the table. My usual rate is 450 per hour, but since it’s you I’ll go with 500. I’ll take a check.”

It was so easy to hate this guy’s guts. With gritted teeth Tony wrote the check. “There you go and do your magic.”

“Thank you, Mr. Stark.” Even his name sounded like an insult coming from Liam. “There is no way to sue Loki. Have a nice day.”

“Are you for real!? You just cashed in 500 dollar! I expect a little bit more than that!”

“Fine. Loki is not a human being. Technically none of our laws apply to him. Even if there was a way around that, there is no way to deliver the papers. He doesn’t have an address. You don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell.”

Finally, now the game was on. Time to be smooth. “No home address? Come on, stabby eyes. Set up the papers, take them home with you and give them to him personally. You guys are pretty much living together, aren’t you?”

Liam didn’t even blink, but his fingers were closing tighter around the pen he was holding. The knuckles were turning white. “My private life is none of your business.”

“Oh… You’re not living together anymore? What happened?”

“Stark, I am warning you.”

“I am so sorry. Well, not really, your ex is psychotic mass murderer after all. You’re better off without him. Come on, we’re going to make his life a living hell. Let’s sue him for everything! I’ve got a list of all the damages he has done to my suits. Do you have a list of all the times he’s fucked up in your relationship? I’m not the expert but we must be able to get some emotional abuse out of this. We’re going to be such a great team, Liam.” With the greatest pleasure Tony heard the cracking noise. That pen was history.

The lawyer’s voice was even but very firm when he gave a very clear answer. “Get out.”

“Hey, I paid the full hour. I’ll get a full hour of your service.”

“This is harassment.”

“Harassment I paid for.”

Growling in annoyance Liam dropped the broken pen and reached into the inside pocket of his jacket. “Fine! I’m not doing this anymore. You want to talk to him, talk to him, but leave me out of this.”

“Gladly, but you just said it yourself – he doesn’t have an address. Pretty hard to get in touch with him.”

Silently cursing under his breath Liam pulled out a little amulet out of his pocket. Tony and Steve only got a short glimpse of it before Liam closed his hand around it. Hopefully this wasn’t some kind of magical grenade that he was going to throw at them.

The voice they suddenly heard coming from behind them dispersed that fear and meant something much worse.

“Are you serious? I am not allowed to teleport in here. I must not contact you when you are at work, but it is okay for you to order me in when you feel like… Oh.” Rather stunned Loki became aware of Steve and Tony’s presence, his eyes growing a little wide. “What is going on here?”

“Can you please tell your… I don’t know what to call them… co-workers where they can find you when they need you? Because I have work to do and no time to deal with this.”

Steve and Tony locked eyes, clearly thinking the same thing. Had Liam just called them and Loki co-workers? At least they were not the only ones irritated by that. Loki was clearly caught up in disbelief. “You called me because you want me to talk to them. Not to you.”

“I don’t care if you talk to them. I want you to get them out of here. This is all about you. You know what? I’ll get a cup of coffee and when I’m back, all three of you are gone.” Evidently Liam was eager to get away from them since he had almost reached the door by the time he had finished talking.

Tony thought that he would have to intervene to stop this meeting from heading down the exact same road as the last one. Luckily it was Loki who didn’t let that happen. With a dismissive snort full of sarcasm. “Walking away from an unpleasant situation. How very unlike you.”

Holding his breath Tony grabbed Steve’s wrist as Liam stopped dead in his tracks before glancing over his shoulder. “Excuse me? Am I being attacked for trying to deescalate things? Again!”

Was this really happening? The two of them arguing? In front of them? Usually the Avengers were the victim of their hostility. This was a nice change. Maybe this was even going to be entertaining. With his arms crossed in front of his chest Loki almost resembled a sulky child. “You’re doing a great job at deescalating things by not being present most of the time. That takes dedication.”

Leaning over Tony whispered “It’s so on” into Steve’s ear who clearly didn’t enjoy this exchange as much as Tony.

The idea of leaving had disappeared from Liam’s mind. “Yes, I am dedicated, ambitious, independent and determined and it is not my problem if you cannot handle that!”

“Oh, I am so sorry!” Loki fake-pleaded. “Forgive me for wanting to spend time with you. In the future I will refrain from committing such a foolish mistake.”

“Jesus Christ! Will you stop acting like such a child!”

Their voices were already reaching a concerning volume, but as long as they were only shouting at each other that was totally fine with Tony.

“You’ve never seen me acting like a child!”

Liam answered with the most outraged laugh imaginable. “Fucking up all the streets of an entire city to stop me from attending a conference is childish!”

Not quite sure how to feel about this Tony addressed his friend. “Is this cute or just psychotic?”

“So when you are affected, it’s childish, but when I make all of Stark’s cars disappear – it’s wonderfully hilarious.”

“I knew that was you!”

Groaning in frustration Liam ran one hand down his face. “For the 100th time – I’ve got a promotion. I need to live up to it and that means longer hours. That’s something you have to deal with.”

“No, I don’t. I don’t have to deal with anything. That’s what you like about me, remember?” By now Loki sounded downright spiteful and Liam rolled his eyes in response. “I like it when you are not trying to get me fired!”

“I am not trying to get you fired!” Loki seemed somewhat offended. “I was trying to stop you from attending that conference with Hank.”

At this point Tony was very close to start recording this. Just to ruin Loki’s image as an evil overlord forever. Jealous of a guy called Hank? That was just magic.

The one who didn’t think that any of this was magic was Liam. “Loki, seriously, I am so over this. Your jealousy is ridiculous. I am going to get a cup of coffee and when I am back all three of you will be gone!” With that final exclamation Liam left the office and slammed the door behind him. Which was a bit pointless since one of the walls was made out of glass and they could see him stalking away. After snapping at his poor and clearly upset secretary. Granted, she had not done a very good job at keeping them out.

With Liam gone and having told them to fuck off there was only now one thing left to do for Tony, Steve and Loki. Feeling rather uneasy in each other’s presence. Well, at least that was true for Steve. Loki didn’t look like he was feeling uncomfortable, he was fucking livid. His eyes were dangerously narrowed and his right hand was shaking slightly. The one he used to throw magical shit at people. Which was clearly what he wanted to do and therefore Tony was wondering why Loki wasn’t already setting them on fire. That guy really looked like he was developing an aneurysm, so why wasn’t he…

“Oh my god! This is glorious!” It had been a while since Tony had felt such genuine joy. “You want to melt our faces off, but you can’t do it, because you would damage his precious desk and he would be even madder at you! Oh, this is awesome! Finally I’m getting something out of this relationship. How does it feel when you want to do something so bad and you are not able to? Performance issues again? That is starting to become a habit. Maybe that’s the reason why things are no longer going smoothly between the two of you. That’s really… Shit!”

At some point during Tony’s speech Loki had decided that he could deal with Liam’s rage and that throwing a ball of green light at Tony was totally worth an even more strained relationship. Tony luckily ducked away at the right time and the ball of magic left severe burn marks on the desk and the wall behind it. One second later Steve jumped up, but Loki had already vanished into thin air. “You alright?”

“I think my hair got a little scorched. Except for that I’m okay. What a son of a bitch!” Slowly Tony picked himself up and took a look around. “Well, that painting definitely goes into the trash. Those flakes of ash on the table are all that’s left of whatever he was working on, right?”

“I fear so.” Steve agreed.

“What the hell did you do?!” Back with his coffee in hand Liam resembled a man who had witnessed an unbearable tragedy like a ship full of orphans and puppies sinking to the ground of the sea. Or in Liam’s case – a damaged painting behind his desk and a ruined legal document.

“Bad news. Your boyfriend and I had a little disagreement. Good news. Now you’ve got something to sue him for.” Tony thought that he had done a very good summary of the situation, so he definitely didn’t understand why Liam was putting his hands on him and it took Steve to stop him from strangling Tony.

***

“Let me see if I get this straight, Rogers.” Fury’s single eye was drilling holes through Steve which was kind of unfair since he was barely involved in what had happened. “You were supposed to gain information during your visit and instead you somehow made sure that Loki destroyed Gaughan’s office and now they two of them are even more at odds than before. Stark, you’re going to wish that Gaughan had actually killed you, because I am going to finish the job.”

For once in his life Tony seemed to be actually offended. “Hey, Cap and I cannot be blamed if those two lovebirds want to peck each other’s eyes out. What is going to happen next? Are you going to blame me for Ross and Rachel’s break up?”

Steve thought this was the right moment to chime in. A longer conversation between Fury and Tony always ran the risk of leading to shouting, then to insults and then to Tony hacking into some computer and stealing data to piss Fury off. “We did what we were supposed to do. They are fighting over things other couples fight too. Loki thinks Gaughan works too much and apparently he is jealous of some co-worker. Gaughan accused Loki of interfering with his work. There was a lot of shouting. I know that they are a nightmare together, but the few times we’ve seen them together they’ve always seemed happy. They didn’t seem happy. At all.”

Despite being anything but a relationship expert Steve was of the opinion that it was very unlikely that Loki’s bad mood was going to lighten up any time soon.

“Perhaps we should start thinking about doing the same thing the US did with the Soviet Union. Wait it out. Deal with the carnage. I don’t see any chance of us fixing this relationship.” Although Steve could understand where Natasha was coming from this was not an option for him.

Tony thought differently. “Couples break up. It happens. Loki will get over it and we’ll never have to date with Gaughan again. How long is that possibly going to take?”

“In your world where it’s impossible to sleep twice with the same person this might be a new concept, but for some people it’s very hard to get over somebody. A break up can take ages. Years. Then there’s sex with the ex.” Clint’s take on it was horrifying. At least for Steve. Tony was staying calm. “Okay, then we’ll help Loki to get over him. He is a good looking guy and there must be a lot of people who are into the leather, go and kneel in front of me thing.” Pulling out his phone Tony grinned. “I am going to set up a Tinder profile for him.”

“I would refrain from that, Stark.” Until now Thor had stayed silent with a pensive look on his face, but Tony’s idea had shaken him up. “My brother clearly has the worst manner of dealing with negative emotions, that is obvious. However, I know that he adores Liam. He is not going to replace him.”

“Just because he doesn’t know he has other options. Like here! This guy is looking for a master to punish him when he has been a bad boy. Doesn’t mind cleaning boots with his tongue. That’s clearly a soulmate.”

Yeah, Steve was out of here for today.

***

“I am sorry what did you just say?”

“Snakes, Romanoff. They turned into snakes. Every single flower in this city. The flower shops look like freaking reptilian cages. Good news, only one third of them is poisonous.”

Again, everyone’s eyes were on Thor. “What is your brother’s problem with flowers?”

This time Thor just shrugged. “I do not know about any allergies. I like snakes though, he knows that. Perhaps he is trying to do something nice for me.”

“Great. Tell that to the 200 people that are currently being treated after a snake bite.”

“Or it might just be his usual way to cause mischief and misery.”

“Sounds more like it.”

“Some of the snakes are rather big, so get up. You’ve got work to do.”

So they got to clear Central Park of at least 3000 snakes, a couple of them over five metres long. Surprisingly enough Loki once more refused to join the party, he didn’t even come there to laugh at them. Probably he was afraid that they would feed him to one of his own snakes. Or he was sobbing into his pillow. That jerk better be depressed and miserable.

***

Clearly Loki intended for everybody else to be as wretched as him. The sun didn’t rise the next day which caused mass hysteria and was the very last straw. Eventually he had pushed Fury to the limit. Now the director of SHIELD was willing to some unprecedented measures to use. They were so out of this world and degrading that even Tony had ethic objections. “Nick, do you really want to do this?”

“No, Stark, I do not. Actually every single bone in my body refuses to, but what choice do I have?”

So this was where all of them had ended up. Kissing Loki’s lawyer boyfriend’s ass.

This conference room was so much fancier than the ones they always had their meetings in. Tony felt cheated and the effort Fury had put into this almost made him gag. There was French sparkling water, Italian wine and since when were there plants in any of these rooms?

At least all of them felt equally crappy when Liam arrived and took his seat opposite of them. Without uttering a word of greeting. “I still have no idea why I agreed to this meeting and I do not want to waste any more time than necessary. What is it that you have to say?”

Fury was tormenting himself by trying to be nice when he clearly just wanted to cut Liam into tiny little pieces. “Mr. Gaughan, thank you so much for taking the time to come here. We’ve always been at odds with each other, therefore I highly appreciate this gesture of goodwill.”

Tony could hear Clint doing the faintest retching noises. Liam was equally unimpressed. “By ‘at odds with each other’ you are referring to your pitiful attempt to get me arrested for aiding and abetting terrorism? Lucky for you I am not holding a grudge since the shabbiness of it was kind of entertaining.”

Natasha shot Fury a look that was clearly an offer to let Liam’s body disappear, all he had to do was ask. For now Fury was keeping it together. That man was a hero. “Let’s not dwell on the past. Would you like something to drink?”

“Will you bloody well get to the point?”

“Fine. Evidently there has been some agitation within your relationship recently. All of New York has been suffering the consequences and you as well. I’ve asked you here because I wanted to ask you personally if you intent to fix your issues.”

It was a general rule that there was never a smile on Liam’s face. Now he was genuinely pissed off. “That is it? I am here, so you can ask me questions that are none of your business and that you know I am not going to answer?”

“It has become everyone’s business when your boyfriend stole the sun!”

“I fail to see what the great deal is.”

Was there somewhere a shovel Tony could hit him with?

Fury was losing his patience. “This is a matter of national safety. Are you planning on working things out with Loki or not?”

“I am not discussing my private life with you. I am out of here.” Liam was on his feet when Fury shed the somewhat nice persona he had put on. “Sit your ass back down! There are a million things that I would rather talk about than your messed up relationship with lunatic alien! Your crazy boyfriend is ruining everybody’s life because you cannot get your shit together. We are not dealing with this anymore! So you are going to tell me right fucking now if you are going to break up with him or not!”

Completely unfazed Liam stared Fury down. “None. Of. Your. Fucking. Business.”

Time for Fury to drop the bomb. “SHIELD is ready to highly recompense you if you were willing to stay in this relationship and to work out your issues with Loki.”

Lightning had struck, they finally had made it to surprise Liam. In the worst way possible. “You are offering me money so I don’t break up with Loki?”

“Damn right I am.” Fury replied grimly. “I don’t give a flying fuck about your personal happiness. For some reason a psychopath who has the power to hide the sun is smitten with you and he is unhappy! I do not care if you have already someone else on the side or if you are just sick of him leaving his helmet lying around your apartment. Get over it! Suck it up, put a smile on your face and be whatever he wants you to be. You’ll receive a nice sum for every month you stay together and he doesn’t fuck shit up.”

Liam’s mouth was literally hanging open. His facial expression was changing from shocked to offended back to shocked. By the time he had recovered he didn’t use a lot of words. “Screw the whole lot of you.”

His hand was on the door handle when a remark from Thor had him stop. “I do not want to be included in this. I do believe you should terminate your courtship.”

Several people were very confused by this statement and Tony wasn’t afraid to point that out. “Thor, buddy, you saying that isn’t part of the plan. Three days ago you were all ‘Loki loves him so much’ and now you want them to break up?”

Thor shrugged. “I want my brother to be happy and he clearly hasn’t been happy in a long time. So maybe them separating would be for the best.”

“Right, because you are the expert on what makes Loki happy. Is this supposed to be a joke or reverse psychology?” Liam’s voice had a lot of bite to it which Thor didn’t seem to mind. “Stark mentioned that there is already another man in your life called Hank.”

“Why are you dragging me into this?”

Wonderful, now Liam was going into an actual fit of rage. “I am not cheating on Loki! Even if I was it would be none of your business!”

“Then why is my brother so upset?”

“It never occurred to you that I might be upset too? This is a private affair, so keep out of it!”

“I cannot when you are making my brother unhappy.”

“Oh my god!” Close to losing his wits over this Liam pulled out his little amulet which Tony would call the ‘Loki beeper’ from now on. Again it took only three scary seconds for Loki to materialise right next to Liam. It was a little unsettling that he didn’t look to be surprised to be at SHIELD headquarters. No, he looked pissed. “Oh, I see. You have time to meet the Avengers and talk to them. How am I supposed to fit into the schedule then?”

Ignoring everything Loki had said Liam instantly fired a question at him. “Your idiot brother thinks I am making you unhappy. Are you unhappy?”

Taken aback Loki blinked, his eyes shortly darting to his brother. “Who cares what Thor thinks?”

“Nobody obviously, but I am getting sick of them trying to intervene in our relationship. So tell him if you are unhappy or not!”

Almost sulkily Loki crossed his arms in front of his chest. “I would be a lot happier if we could have this conversation in private. Evidently that cannot happen because that would require you spending time with me.”

They were going to witness some soap opera worthy relationship drama. The two of them quickly engaged in this conversation as if they were alone and Liam could sound just as defiant as Loki. “Yesterday was my day off. You knew that. You could have dropped by at any time, but you were too busy tossing New York into complete darkness.”

“I thought I was doing you a favour by prolonging the night a little bit. After all you were working overtime with Hank at the office. Did you get everything done in time?”

It was odd that one could tell how much two people liked each other by now much venom they could put into their words while talking to each other.

Liam let out a dismissive snort that made clear he had had this conversation many times before. “I’ve had it up to here with your jealousy.”

“I am not jealous.” Loki replied stone-faced. “I don’t like him around you. If I actually were jealous, he’d be long dead.”

“That makes it so much better. For the last time, stop messing with my work!”

“How about you get back home on time for a change?”

“I’ve just been promoted, I cannot fuck up right now.”

“Why not? I can fix that with magic.”

“I don’t want you to!”

“Why not?!”

“It’s already hard enough to not feel completely inadequate when your boyfriend is a god!”

That last heated argument was followed by sudden silence. Silence of the awkward kind. For Loki and Liam, Tony was still loving the hell out of this. In no way would he describe himself a soap opera lover, but this fight combined so many different forms of drama that it was pretty much impossible to resist. Why not marvel at the fact the world’s most unlikable couple was plagued by jealousy and insecurities like everybody else. And the awkwardness was simply delicious. Clearly everybody else didn’t think so.

With his discomfort put on display Loki cleared his throat. Probably to overcome the silence. “I had no idea you felt that way. Why… why do you feel like that?”

Liam laughed again, less sarcastically. It sounded nervous. “Are you kidding? We fight and you take it out on the city, because you can. All I can do is yelling at my secretary and complain about my latté not being hot enough. I would like to turn flowers into snakes too when I am mad!”

“Yes, I am a powerful, amazing, exciting god. Still work is more interesting than me.” Loki was back to rolling his eyes and Liam let out a noise that indicated he was ready to commit a murder. “No, it’s not! How can you make this about yourself when we were talking about my insecurities?!”

“Because I do not understand! What could you possibly feel inadequate about? There’s not another person on this planet who is in the same league as you. Just look at these fools who are barely capable of speaking in complete sentences.” Dismissively Loki gestured at the Avengers and continued talking before any of them had the chance to be outraged. “Thor thinks I am unhappy? I want to spend every day with you. There is not an inadequate cell in your body.”

Tony was torn between calling Loki a jerk and making an ‘aww’ sound.

“That’s… sweet.” Liam said through gritted teeth “But it’s not just about what you think. What I do is important to me. That’s something you have to accept.”

“I don’t have to accept it anything when it means I am less important than your work.”

“But you aren’t! There are parts in my life that you are not involved in. Just like when you went to that place called… Vanarheim or something and started a civil war there. That’s your thing and that’s completely fine. We do not need to do everything together. I do not want to do everything together and I think neither do you.”

Just when they were making progress Thor had to interrupt them, looking as white as a chalk. “That was you?!”

Loki generously ignored him, focusing on his boyfriend. “Yes, I guess so… I just would prefer it if… there were more days of doing stuff together than… not.”

This was clearly difficult for Loki and yet Tony felt the urge to point out that Loki wasn’t much better at forming actual sentences than them. Unlike Tony Liam definitely didn’t mind. Finally the features of his face were softening a bit, he didn’t look ready for murder anymore. “I missed you too. Those were two very long weeks.”

“Yes. I did not have a good time either.”

Was that guy kidding? He had bestowed chaos over the entire city of New York and he hadn’t even enjoyed himself while doing so?! Also, was that an actual smile on Liam’s face? What was happening?

“I pretty much fell asleep on the couch each night because you weren’t there to tell me to shut off the TV and get into bed. I’d like to not do this again tonight. Can we continue this conversation at my place? Where there is wine and no seven idiots staring at us, because they do not have an actual life of their own.”

Loki nodded. “That sounds like something I’d very much like to do. It’s rather disturbing that they are still listening.”

This was clearly the point where they could no longer stay silent and Clint was gladly the first to speak up. “Are you crazy? We just fixed your relationship! A little bit of appreciation is in order!”

The undisputedly worst couple in the universe simultaneously rolled their eyes. “This relationship doesn’t need any help. Least of all from you. Loki, let’s go.”

Nobody uttered a complaint when Loki and Liam left, oddly enough through the door. With their fingers loosely entwined. The second they were gone, Tony raised one hand and offered a high-five to whoever wanted it. “Great job, everybody! We’ve saved this city again and helped two people to rediscover the gift of love. I think we can be very proud of ourselves.”

“You think so?” Natasha asked drily. “Then why do I so dirty right now?”

***

“Where is he?! Tell me where he is, so I can kick his ass!”

The secretary didn’t even attempt to hold Tony and Clint back when they stormed past her into Liam’s newly furnished office. No surprise visible on that bastard’s face when he looked up at them. “Oh, the Avengers. That’s convenient.”

“Now listen to me carefully.” Clint closed his hands around the edge of Liam’s desk, leaning in close in an intimidating gesture. “Whatever you did to piss Loki off again, undo it!”

With an admittedly pretty smile on his face Liam shook his head. “Things between me and Loki have never been better. Thank you for asking, Barton.”

Time for Tony to clear things up. “If you guys are so lovely dovey, then why is he screwing with us?! All my suits look like this!” In a fury Tony waved around the suit that now nicely fitting into one of his hands. “This is multimillion action figure! I have 50 of them!”

“Yeah and my arrows look like toothpicks!”

That son of a bitch started to laugh joyfully like a child. “Loki actually went for that? It was my idea. How did Thor react?”

Clint’s eyebrows shot up. “How did Thor react to what?”

“Oh, he hasn’t noticed yet? You guys are in for a treat. I don’t want to spoil it.”

“Just why?!”

Liam was having the time of his life as he gave them an explanation. “We both agreed that you needed a little reminder that other people’s relationships are none of your business. By the way I am suing you for causing my emotional distress by kidnapping me. You’ve been served.” Saying that he handed Clint a brown envelope and Tony was tempted to grab it and make confetti out of it. Sadly that didn’t make lawsuit go away, he had tried before.

“You damned son of a…”

“I would love to keep talking, but I am leaving work early today. Me and my boyfriend are going out for dinner.”

Just as Liam was standing up there was a knock on the door. Tony and Clint spun around to see Loki there, clad in an elegant, dark three piece suit. He was smiling. “Hey there. Ready to go?”

“Absolutely.” Liam had all forgotten about Clint and Tony’s presence. He greeted Loki with a quick kiss and beamed at him. “I heard you went for the action doll option. That is so sweet of you.”

Loki smiled back and put an arm around the other’s waist. “It was the best idea. How could I not go for it?”

“You have to tell me all about it over dinner.”

“Already looking forward to it.”

They left behind two stunned Avengers, reminiscing about the gold old times when they hadn’t meddled with the art of couple’s therapy.


End file.
